Astral Seal = The Most Broken Ability

[TerraDave]

Hey, I started a thread on this!

I was also unerved by the volume of non surge healing. In my current party composition, 2 strikers, a wizard that likes to set things on fire, and a great axe wielding max strength defender, it actually helps balance things out. The, "hit the target get a prize" bit is also fun.

Two (or three) other things are worth noting:

-not only do you sacrifice damage, you sacrifice concetrating damage on a particular target (with others), and hence taking it out faster. Sacred flame is good at this.

-on the flip side, you loose control of who gets healing. I have seen plenty of times were the "wrong" PC hits and gets healed.

-(and when someone needs to save, sacred flame probably remains the best at will in the game).

 

[Prestidigitalis]

So basically every encounter you have 586 hp to burn trhough.

So, it's time for the DM to break out the "NO-hammer".

If that doesn't work, the DM breaks out the "Why do you hate my campaign so much that you have to do something that will completely piss me off and all of the other players too?" hammer.

 

[twilsemail]

But a dying creature is still bloodied.

can anyone back up or refute this with text? I seem to remember the bloodied condition ending once someone was dying, though I can't find the text to back this up. If you are still bloodied even when dying... that pretty much means Longtooth shifters can only die by taking BV+2/4/6 damage in one turn...

I'm going back to the books to start hunting again.

 

[Mengu]

can anyone back up or refute this with text? I seem to remember the bloodied condition ending once someone was dying, though I can't find the text to back this up. If you are still bloodied even when dying... that pretty much means Longtooth shifters can only die by taking BV+2/4/6 damage in one turn...

I'm going back to the books to start hunting again.

You are still bloodied while dying. The bloodied condition is not removed.

However, regeneration explicitly indicates "If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration." So, Consecrated Ground works, regeneration doesn't.

 

[Aulirophile]

can anyone back up or refute this with text? I seem to remember the bloodied condition ending once someone was dying, though I can't find the text to back this up. If you are still bloodied even when dying... that pretty much means Longtooth shifters can only die by taking BV+2/4/6 damage in one turn...

I'm going back to the books to start hunting again.

Nope.

Regeneration
Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the start of your turn. If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration.

Consecrated Ground is straight healing, not regeneration, so it works differently.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Consecrated Ground is straight healing, not regeneration, so it works differently.

Also, I found that Consecrated Ground is an action hog. Minor to maintain, move action to move it 3 squares. So the monsters can get out of range of it easily enough if they're intelligent.

I tried it for a while, but it just took so much effort that the only time it came in handy was when we were royally hosed.

Brad

 

[Iron Sky]

I tried it for a while, but it just took so much effort that the only time it came in handy was when we were royally hosed.

Is there a better time for it to work?

Our party usually doesn't bust out the dallies unless A) They're pretty sure it's the last/only fight of the day or B) they're getting royally hosed.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Is there a better time for it to work?

Our party usually doesn't bust out the dallies unless A) They're pretty sure it's the last/only fight of the day or B) they're getting royally hosed.

The DM got a LOT better about building encounters that weren't going to slaughter us.

And thinking back, I can't think of any encounters where we were going down that much. Now that my cleric has a lot more in the way of surge delivery, Consecrated Ground wouldn't have been a good use of the actions involved. Heck, with the DM's penchant for throwing out stunlocks*, it'd be easy to get rid of anyway.

MAYBE if he was built to be a stand-in-the-back-and-heal type, that'd be a better thing, but it's a minotaur with a huge axe.

* - We've had a word with him about this, too.

Brad

 

[Aulirophile]

When I was DMing the group with a Cleric that had it, I adjusted for it. Every couple of sessions there'd be one encounter/day where it was perfect, and if he used it then, he'd really shine. It allowed me to make encounters that were otherwise too draining to spring on them feel awesome for the party (and him inparticular). I tried to do that for every character in some way. Thankfully I never had a skill monkey player, as skill challenges are not my strong suit.

 

[IanB]

I feel like I should point out that the damage analysis vs. Sacred Flame earlier in the thread is making one rather bad assumption, which is that everyone is always hitting the target the cleric hit with Astral Seal, which is certainly not true and in many cases will not even be optimal.